Notes

The Girl Scout of the Phillippines’ Sorsogon Council recently invited us to join their Disaster Risk Reduction Management Training held last August 20 - 22 at Bulan North Central School.

To coincide with their personal safety training, we taught the bite prevention technique “Be Like A Tree, Be Like A Rock” with a game. I introduced the children to three imaginary dogs “Brownie, Bruno & Bogart” who have different characteristics. Brownie is a very gentle and well-behaved dog and he is well cared for, trained and socialized by his owners. Bruno is very playful, untrained and is allowed by his owners to roam the streets and chase children. While Bogart is uncared for by his owners. He is always locked up in his cage and irregularly fed and given water. When he manages to escape his cage he attacks people.

In the game, when a dog’s name is spoken, the children will decide if they will be like a tree, be like a rock or pat the dog’s head. Aside from knowing what to do when a dog approaches or attacks, through this game, the children will know that not all dogs are harmful and that how we take care of our dogs have different effects on them.

We also had a quiz game for the first aid for dog bites. The questions were a multiple choice type of question and the incorrect options given were the usual wrong practices done in the Philippines. After a question was answered, we explained to the children why the other options are wrong.
Afterwards, Dr. Liduvina Dorion, Sorsogon’s CARE Human Rabies Coordinator who is also Sorsogon’s Asst. Provincial Health Officer had a discussion with the children on rabies and also gave some reminders on ailments proliferating among children this season.